


Crawling Back to Humanity

by AngelOfDeath10



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Drama, F/M, Lime, Romance, less of an age gap
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-17
Updated: 2019-10-16
Packaged: 2020-12-20 22:42:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 17,660
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21064394
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AngelOfDeath10/pseuds/AngelOfDeath10
Summary: Sakura has found herself at a loose end and almost literally dumped in Sasori's lap. A drug dealer has no use for a concussed college student and Sakura just wants to live to see another day. Somehow, they make sense of it all.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto; fanfic is for the luls.
> 
> Originally written in 2014.

When you live life as a predator, everyone is a potential victim.

He couldn't explain what had brought him to this point in his life, not exactly, maybe the feeling that mortality was so inevitable that fuck it all. Sasori sold drugs not out of need or because he was a slave to them (though he was fond of his ambien and some fairly common painkillers), but because it was just a means to an end. Small time dealers who wanted to be medium to big time dealers came to him, begging for a fix, begging for product, or just begging and he watched them dance. There was an art to the dance, to seeing the places where his manipulations had brought them under his control.

His partner in crime for their region, Deidara liked to get his hands dirty but that wasn't Sasori's way generally. Deidara thought Sasori's lack of ambition was pitiful, and Sasori thought Deidara's grasping forceful manner was pitiful so they forged a friendship through mutual disdain. They were effective, and that's all the organization cared about. Interactions between other teams were limited, even though the war against drugs had failed miserably long ago. Too many strong personalities in a room, perhaps. Sasori didn't care, he had his own agenda anyway.

How he came by her, he wouldn't say, but when Itachi deposited the girl at his doorstep he was more surprised to see another Akatsuki member more than the limp female form slung over his shoulder. It was nearly dawn, and Sasori had already climbed into bed when his phone had lit up with a warning that a special package needed immediate delivery.

"My bastard brother," Itachi said as if it explained it all. Sasori had been vaguely aware of Sasuke's struggle with addiction, and his intermittent crimes in pursuit of a quick fix. "Some friend of his from high school. I don't care what you tell her, or if she lives. I have Sasuke downstairs in the car. We're taking a little ride."

Whatever had gone down must have been bad if Itachi was in this much of a rush.

"It means you'll owe me." Sasori said, even though Itachi would have already known it. Saying it out loud brought it to light, made it a verbal contract. Itachi nodded and shifted the burden from his shoulder to Sasori's. There was a groan that let both men know that she was not, literally, dead weight.

"You'll owe me big." Sasori qualified. Dead body disposal came with the territory, but live bodies were a host of other complications.

Itachi nodded gravely and with a hushed click multiple deadbolts were between Sasori's world and him, with the exception of this girl. She smelled, he noted, her navy sweatshirt covered in unspeakable gunk, her black jeans ripped and dirty as well. All he could see was the back of her, but she was heavier than her slight frame would imply. Muscular, maybe.

Her hands flopped around against his back as he hauled her to the bathroom. He sat her in the tub fairly gently, more out of respect for the delicate tiles of his shower than what might be done to her head. Pink hair, he noted with a shimmer of unexpected interest, and he thought of his own recent dye job. Once he had noted the white hairs cropping up in his carefully tousled rusty brown strands he had immediately started coloring it red. Being inconspicuous was the responsibility of his worker bees.

She was lovely, he thought dispassionately, like he was cataloguing her traits for someone else. There was something vital about her, even with blood streaking her face and spotted all over her clothes, and there was something angelic about those lips with their stubborn pout. He smiled down at her, nodding softly to himself in approval as he turned on the shower full blast.

The girl sputtered, clawing at the porcelain sides of the tub, but did not scream. The thick concrete walls in his condo would never have let a sound escape, (which had been a valuable selling point) but Sasori felt like her fortitude was admirable.

***

Sakura came to painful and sudden consciousness. The cold water pouring over her stung twice over, from the sheer frigid nature of it and the drumming on her tender wounds. There were bruises that ached as she moved.

Her eyes fluttered open and regarded the strange man lounging on the toilet next to the bathtub as if it were an actual throne. He was shirtless, she saw first, something unavoidably obvious due to the attention his kanji tattoo drew to it. Scorpion. It seemed at odds with his pretty face, but seemed well suited to the unnaturally red hair he was sporting.

"Where am I?" She felt like she was moving through syrup, maybe even thinking through it, too.

"My condo."

"Why am I in the bathtub?" The water was finally beginning to warm, causing her shivers to subside somewhat. The water was cloudy as the blood, the mud, and all the unspeakable things that had been on the floor in that opium den washed off of her. God damn Sasuke, taking it to the ground like that hadn't been part of her plan.

"You stink."

"Ah." In her state she felt like that made enough sense. "How did I get here?"

The shrug he gave fluttered muscles through his chest and Sakura became instantly more wary. She cold take on most people, even half conscious and weakened from her earlier bout with Sasuke, but this man had that deceptive musculature that didn't proclaim strength but did whisper caution to the observant.

Alarmed as more of her memories came flooding in, she thrashed in the tub as if she could spring to her feet. All she managed was an ungainly splash before she roared, "Where's Sasuke!?"

"Long gone, so you can stop making a mess of my bathroom." He looked down with distaste as discolored water splashed onto his black pajama bottoms.

"I failed? I fucking failed?!" Sakura sank down, deflated. "Of course you failed again, Sakura. You ran straight in and punched him like an idiot."

"If you're speaking of Uchiha, then it does sound like you're an idiot."

"Don't you start, you don't even know. I spent weeks tracking him down through heroin flop houses, opium dens, meth labs, and I've spoken to every tweaker in this city only to ruin it all by running in and punching him the second I found him." Sakura wanted to cry, but from anger and pain more than sadness. "I give up. I finally give up. He can kill himself, I'm done with him."

Sasori, who disliked drama but enjoyed information, especially when it had the potential to give him an advantage on another Akatsuki member decided that maybe this wasn't as unfortunate an encounter as it could have been.

"Sounds like you were close once." The water falling on her was starting to steam, obscuring her vision of the man on the toilet.

"Once. But whoever I thought was Sasuke disappeared long ago." Sakura was still gathering her wits about her but looked at the man through narrowed eyes. "Who are you?"

If she had spent so much time among his puppets, as he liked to think of them, recently then it's possible his name would mean something to her, but he decided that the false trust truth provided was worth the risk.

"Sasori." He reached forward and turned off the water with a neat movement. "I'll get you a trash bag for those clothes."

Taller than she had suspected, Sakura thought. The world still seemed cloudy even as the steam dissipated. The open door from the bathroom showed a grey dawn over the city. Some random high rise in the city, expensive, anonymous, and she was stuck here with a stranger. Naruto had told her not to go after Sasuke. It was a dumb way to spend a summer, he had said, but he had been planning to do the same thing. Naruto's foster brother meant the world to him, and Sakura had thought she loved him when they were younger, but it was like a monster woke up in him in high school. The search for Itachi had ended with a needle in his vein.

She felt dead inside when she thought his name. It was time to cut those strings that bound them.

"Do I have a concussion?" She asked when Sasori returned, trash bag rustling at his side. He crouched down next to her, about to touch her face to check on a long cut which had started to bleed once crusted blood had been washed from it.

"Probably." He seemed unconcerned. A cellphone buzzing echoed through the condo, and Sasori looked back behind his shoulder. He was so close she could almost feel the puff of air he let out as he stood again. "I need to get that."

Sakura looked down to see his toenails with the black polish neatly applied. Weirdo. Her fuzzy mind came to the conclusion that the kind of man who wore black nail polish on his toenails would have no interest in a naked woman, and began to strip the filthy rags from her body. His voice rose and fell in the other room, and she closed the door to give them both some privacy. It was an oddly masculine voice for that pretty face, especially when he was on the phone.

She wanted to burn these clothes, not just throw them away. She stripped to the skin and then looked at herself in the full-length mirror on the back of the bathroom door. Too skinny, she thought, but that had been from being too distracted to eat the past couple of weeks. Bruises on her hip where she had landed when Sasuke had tackled her following the punch. A gash on her forehead from the elbow he had given her that had knocked her out cold. Various small scratches and bruises peppered her body from when they had been rolling around on the floor before said elbow landed.

A dull throb in her head told her that a mild concussion was her reality, and the dull throb in her throat told her she was going to start to cry at any moment. She deposited the trash bag on the other side of the door, and started the shower up again. Sakura washed away the weeks of filth, feeling the warm thrum of water beat on her body and allow her to ignore the little aches. It was hard to believe she had to go back to school in a little more than a month. It seemed so trivial, the pre-med classes. She had just spent half a summer with living cadavers it almost seemed comical that she would go spend a semester with real ones.

Soap options were limited: foreign body wash, color-stay shampoo, and nothing else. She smelled like expensive cologne when she stepped out of the shower. Wiping off the mirror, she tried to piece together the past few days again as if it would cure her fuzzy minded thinking but all she got was a blur of images. Nothing good could come of memories from this summer. Absently she opened the medicine cabinet and slowly read some of the labels. Bottle after orange bottle greeted her, and a lone little white bottle of aspirin in the corner.

"To be fair, one of those is a sleep aid." Sasori said and Sakura shrieked this time grabbing a nearby towel and hastily covering her body. She slammed the cabinet door closed too hard and it swung back open perversely, physics betraying her. "Would you believe me if I said I had a lot of chronic unspecific pain problems?"

"No."

He chuckled and narrowed his eyes at her. Kindness, disinterest, it was all about playing a part. Sasori was still deciding what to do with this girl, but he was changing his idea about the kind of game to play now that he had caught a glimpse of her innocently covering herself. The only women he usually came into contact with were either addicts or dealers, and none of them had her aura of innocence.

Hair limp and dripping, Sakura tried to look daggers at the man leaning against the bathroom doorframe. "Thank you very much for helping me. If you'll let me borrow or have some clothes I'll get out of your way right now."

"I'm afraid you're going to have to stay a bit longer than that." He didn't say it as if a threat was implied, but she had the distinct feeling that there was one involved. "Until an associate has a moment to bring the proper tools to silence and blindfold you, I can't let you leave. I wouldn't want you finding your way back here, you see."

"Sasori…" Neurons fired at last. Scorpion logos stamped on empty bags of powder on the floor, stories of blood and old territory wars, it hadn't sparked a memory because Sasori had always been Sasori Akasuna. That meant…

Not missing a beat, he had already observed all the emotions flicker over her pretty face. From realization to fear and back to determination mixed with confusion. She was so uncomplicated in this state he found her charming, he realized. It was inconvenient that she knew his name. The gun in the bedroom, stolen as it was, flickered through his mind as an option only to find he actually didn't have the stomach for it. She was too pure somehow, this girl who had fallen into his lap due to the idiocy of those messy Uchihas.

He tossed a thin red robe at Sakura, and it pooled at her feet. "No underwear?" She actually blushed at that. Walking around his apartment in nothing but a robe seemed somehow more indecent than walking around stark naked. And why couldn't he put on a shirt? There were more important things, like was she coming out of this alive, but her brain just couldn't put together anything properly like a box of jigsaw pieces and no picture to guide her in assembly.

Sasori didn't stay to watch her dress, and she took longer than necessary to towel dry her hair before slipping on the robe. It was thin, and it swept near the tops of her toes. Covering as much of herself as possible, she cracked open the door and rounded the corner to see him brewing coffee in the kitchen. The front door was next to the kitchen and she briefly thought about how far she would get with a concussion and in nothing but a robe.

"What's your poison?" He said, catching her in her thoughts with a start.

"Excuse me?!"

"Would you like something to drink?" He turned around to face her and gestured to the coffee.

"I can get some water for myself." She didn't want any drink that hadn't passed through her own hands, as if he were going to drop drugs into whatever he gave her.

He gestured as if she were welcome to root around in his kitchen and exited it to make the invitation more palatable. She was so intent on not making eye contact with him that when he glanced down at the gap at the top of the robe she didn't see his eyes flicker. Unwilling to give up other clothes to her, he was oddly pleased to see her in such an intimate item. Having braced for disgust at intrusion, he wondered what was going on in his own usually well-ordered mind.

Sasori sat down on the couch and heard her clink and bang around his kitchen as she searched for the cupboard with the glasses in it. It was a very late night for him, being nocturnal for the most part, and the coffee was to help him stay awake through what would be a very long day. He couldn't get Deidara here until dusk and he wasn't going to sleep with her here. Sasori rubbed at his eyes, wondering when the last time it was he had watched the sun rise.

Water in hand, pink hair messy and only half dry, she looked down at him on the brown leather couch with pure horror. She didn't want to sit knowing full well anything could have happened on it. The beautiful, expensive looking, wood coffee table was probably covered in drug residue, and who knew what unspeakable things had happened behind those closed doors.

"It's an office. Papers. Computer. Nothing else." Sasori said, interrupting her horror with shock at how accurately he had noted her train of thought. "The other room is a bedroom. And if you're so worried about sitting on the couch there are disinfecting wipes under the sink."

"Are you going to hurt me?"

Sasori stood up, and strode over to her. He was so close she expected heat to come off of him in waves, but the air was so still around him it was almost like he wasn't there. He rolled some strands of her hair between two fingers, and his brown eyes seemed soft as he regarded her, but the words were hard. "I wasn't expecting I'd need to, as things stand."

Then suddenly she could breathe again and he was in the kitchen pouring black coffee into a mug and sipping it silently.

"Sit down, Sakura. The couch won't give you hepatitis or whatever other thing you were thinking." He formed the syllables of her name like the were ungainly.

She sat down mechanically, looking at the nearly bare room. He existed here rather than lived, with nothing present other than what was strictly necessary like the coffee table and a few chairs, a couch and a long dining room table with seats for ten. Nothing personal, no knick knacks, just a mirror near the entrance way and a large nondescript painting with random splotches of color. It felt like a waiting room, and maybe that's what it was, in a sense.

Sasori sat on the other side of the couch from her and set the half full mug of coffee down in front of him before leaning back and staring at her in a way that made her feel exposed.

"What are we supposed to do all day, then?"

He leaned closer to her, never breaking eye contact, and her heart leapt into her throat. Inexplicably, fear was mixed with anticipation and she scolded herself mentally even as she wasn't sure her heart was in it. Her thoughts were just confused, she told herself.

When he reached in front of her and opened a drawer in the coffee table she was sure she was going to die from embarrassment. He withdrew a remote and hit a button that had the picture sliding apart to reveal a huge television. When he turned his attention to the TV she was sure she saw a smirk flash across his face. Bastard. He was playing with her. He turned on Al Jazeera and flipped between that and stock updates, which was so very dull Sakura started to chat just to keep herself awake.

"I meant it," she said, possibly just to herself, "I'm done trying to get Sasuke back. I won't stop Naruto but Sasuke is dead to me now."

Sasori appeared to be absorbed in a report about a minor military coup in Africa so she launched into her monologue.

"I thought I loved him, you know. He was so pretty in high school, or handsome, whatever. I knew he wouldn't even think of liking me because Naruto liked me, but that's just what I told myself to spare my own pride. I'm not the sexiest girl and I just didn't do it for him. Man, I thought it would take therapy before I admitted to something like that." She drank down her water and continued. "Maybe I just wanted to mother him a little, really. He seemed too handsome and too tragic. He was abused by his father, you know. Sexually. My mom told me one time that it was one of those open secrets. We came from such a small town, practically the middle of nowhere. People don't talk about those sorts of things. Goddam I hate small town life."

Sasori was half-listening to her patter on, tired and slightly irritable now that the flush of excitement had run out from the newness of the intrusion.

"His brother too, with the whole father thing. Man, they are sure a screwed up family. No wonder Itachi killed him in the end. Justice, I guess, even if it's wrong. Everyone's wrong."

In that moment he loved her. This little pink haired girl—glancing at the robe beginning to gape at the top he amended that—this pink haired woman had just given him the only gift that ever mattered to him: power over someone. None of his investigations had turned up anything about abuse in the Uchiha family. He had dug up information on everyone in the Akatsuki over the years, planting spies among his 'friends' as he did with his rival dealers. Itachi, other than the obvious outstanding warrant for a very messy murder committed he was a teen hadn't had anything remarkable for Sasori to grasp from his past. It was like he had murdered his father and launched himself into notoriety among the Akatsuki simultaneously and there had been nothing before. Sexual abuse left deeps wounds and Sasori knew where he could twist a knife if the time ever came that he needed to for whatever reason. This girl—no—Sakura had delivered him something rare and fantastic.

He hadn't realized how long he had sunk into his own twisted and triumphant thoughts when he felt her hand snake over his thigh. Muscles tensed in anticipation and he felt his own latent arousal spring to life, surprising him. But something didn't seem quite right when the seduction attempt stopped as suddenly as it seemed to begin.

"Oh for fuck's sake." She was asleep, slumped over awkwardly and her hand had merely slid over the soft leather and landed next to his thigh. How embarrassing, reacting like an eager teen over this girl, more than a decade his junior.

"Wake up," he almost growled at her, pinching the soft skin on the back of her hand. He was annoyed with himself, for not being in control when he was in control of everything all the time. "WAKE UP."

He found he had to slide himself over to her side of the couch and gather her up back to a sitting position. Sasori slapped her face lightly, watching with unasked for relief as she opened her eyes with a flutter.

"Did something happen? I'm so sleepy." Her face was inches from him as she huffed. "You watch the most boring shows I've ever seen."

"You have a concussion. You can't sleep until tonight."

Sakura felt so annoyed at him for pointing out the obvious. "Well, of course I know that. I know all about concussions. I'm going to be a doctor." She smiled up at him. "A surgeon in fact. I'm going to save lives."

Should she succeed she'd have some worth to his world on her own, which was another point he stored in his mind to consider. Knowing a doctor who was beholden to him might be worth pursuing.

"Make me mad." She was still bundled in his arms, but her muscles had stiffened a bit and he noted how firm they became. Whatever punch she had landed on the Uchiha he was probably feeling today. Disentangling, he looked at her with the question unvoiced.

She forged on. "If you make me mad I know I can stay awake."

"There are other ways to keep you awake," His hand, with his long tapered fingers, grasped her knee.

"What?!" She balled her hands into fists and was about to strike out at him when she saw the expression on his face was pure condescension. "Oh I see, well done." The alarm inside of her deflated but not entirely as he hadn't moved his hand from her knee.

"But you can't just touch me and expect it will make me angry every time."

"Can't I?" Sasori started to slide his hand over her knee, forcing the material of the robe to pull apart in a way that immediately set her pulse racing.

"Stop stop stop, ok you made your point." He finally lifted his hand from her, leaving a cold spot and a lot of confusion in its wake. Sasori was the scum of the earth, he twisted people's lives and existed in this pristine life at such a high cost of human suffering it was unfair he could look so good, so untouched by time or basic empathy. It was her duty as a moral person to hate him, but the fog in her brain shook her convictions and all she could conjure was how nice he had been to her, how solicitous, how (almost) gentlemanly. Any moment the mask would drop.

Sasori watched her struggle and felt an unusual amount of amusement, like he had pinned a live butterfly to his wall. Vaguely, he wondered if he had ever been that naïve. The competing line of thought, while he noted clinically that his treacherous body was stirring, was exploring a small undercurrent of fear. It had been so long since he had felt so many competing emotions, let alone desire, and it touched on the threat of attachment. He knew all too well that attachment only lead to suffering. The urge to run to the bathroom and pop a vicodin was so strong he felt like he had to resist it on principle.

So the morning passed, with Sakura and Sasori slowly winding themselves up in their own heads but both of them working so hard to deny it was happening an outside observer might think nothing was happening at all. Casual sporadic touches, comments about bad television that neither was really watching, and the occasional buzz of Sasori's phone which he would look at briefly before ignoring. Lunch was crackers and cheese, finding almost nothing else edible in the condo. There was no talk or ordering in, that just wasn't something Sasori did and Sakura felt mildly nauseated from the crackers so didn't care for anything more substantial.

"What about music?" It came out of nowhere, Sakura trying to cut through the tension between them. "Do you listen to music?"

Sasori thought about the radio in the car he hardly used, then glanced down at his phone. It was a tool, the number often changed. He carried nothing on it that could be considered personal on the off chance he would have to abandon it somewhere. His laptop contained some music Deidara had downloaded onto it when he had been stuck waiting here while Sasori had prepped the body of an OD in the bathtub. That had marked the last time he allowed deals in the condo itself, or for dealers to bring along their strung out hangers on. Then again, that had been over a decade ago and that music probably hadn't survived the computer switches since then.

"Never on purpose. But I don't dislike it."

People said it stirred the soul, Sakura thought. Maybe he didn't have enough soul to be stirred.

"Is there anything you like to do? Like a hobby?" Sakura tried to lead in a little more specifically. "I read a lot of medical texts in my spare time, but my hobby is kickboxing. I started taking classes in an MMA gym and branch out, but I'm terrible at the jujitsu stuff. I'd rather throw a punch than hug someone." She wrinkled her nose. "This is not my first concussion. I'm going to have to stop fighting soon if I want enough brains to get into med school."

Unexpected, but at least it explained her unusual muscularity. "I collect art."

No one was more surprised than Sasori that he had answered the question honestly.

"Really?" Sakura's doubting tone was totally understandable when she once again took in the completely bland surrondings.

"Mostly sculpture. I've donated some of it to parks and buildings anonymously." Now that he was talking about he felt eager to share a little more. The only person he could talk about art with was Deidara and that man was a philistine. He went in for those dumb performance spectacles like when people set themselves on fire, or created delicate glass sculptures that got thrown into a trash compactor in front of an audience. 'Art of the moment' he called it. What was art if not immortality? Without permanence it was just children screaming to be looked at. "Naturally it's too heavy and conspicuous for here. There's a warehouse."

He wanted her to see it, he thought, and he knew that that thought was both sentimental and unrealistic. Whatever she was doing to his brain, he did not approve. Maybe concussions were communicable. She was too sensual, too sweet, too perfect. He felt like a fool for not seeing it before, and the familiar cold walls came crashing down with the old numbness stealing over his heart like an old friend.

"So how much is Itachi paying you?"

"Pardon?"

He moved closer to her, grasping her hand and moving cool fingers over the skin of her arm, creating goosebumps. "I said," and his friendly voice turned low and vicious. "How much is he paying you to be here? To lure me into some trap. You're unreal, some perfectly innocent bystander that needs my help. No one who gets this close to me could possibly be…" He tried to find a word that described her. "Pure." It was spit out, a curse tossed in her direction.

"That's hurts!" He had begun to constrict her arm and twist it just so. He was too close for her kicks or punches to have much of an effect. "How can I prove anything to do if you already think I'm guilty? I don't have any ID or clothes, and you won't let me leave here or call anyone! What's left?!"

"I could lock you in the bathroom until Deidara comes to take you away. I could torture you until you tell me why you're here. I know you saw barbeque skewers in the kitchen, but you know I don't keep any food here." He had leapt into something like madness, as if any other explanation of her presence made more sense than the current premise.

"Sasori," her use of his name only made his fingers dig in a little harder. "Take me to your computer. I'll show you!"

He didn't want to give her the benefit of the doubt. She represented weakness, and his world didn't allow weakness. Sakura stumbled into the computer room, partially due to him pushing her, and he furiously unlocked the login screen only to watch her click open the internet browser. She pulled up everything, social media sites, high school website, college mail and grade readout and as he examined the date/time stamps and the long history of interactions he got the sinking feeling that he might be wrong. Some of this would be easy enough to fake, but other pieces would be very hard. Loan information from the state, pictures on file with the private college she attended, and photo after photo in high school. It could be a very deep game Itachi was playing at, but he realized after looking at her digital life spread out before him, he didn't care if it was or not. The cc camera monitors surrounding them were the only light, casting ghostly shadows over them and reinforced how no one was around, practically in the entire building, but them.

"See? I told you I'm just me not some—mmph" His mouth was on her full and possessive. His hands were untying the knotted robe belt as she tried to process this complete shift in his demeanor.

He pulled away, finally looking today like it wasn't ice water in his veins and heated brown eyes searched her face. "I'm not going to have you crying rape to the police. Tell me now, yes or no." He wished he could force a yes from her mouth, to end the excruciating loneliness, the emptiness he had filled with pills and violence.

It's just a biological imperative, she told herself. You're going to regret it if you say yes. No decisions based on lust ever seemed smart in the light of day. But the sensible words from inner Sakura didn't seemed to have made a dent on the decision she came to almost immediately.

"Yes."

***

Deidara knocked on the door, knowing he hated it when people didn't call first. Any little thing he could do to annoy Sasori seemed like a win. He didn't hate the guy, he was efficient at what he did, but he wished he'd have a little fun for once.

Sasori answer the door, impeccably dressed as always in a black suit and white shirt, no tie. The man always looked crisp, like he had sprung out of a factory assembly line for rotten to the core bastards.

"You're on time at least."

"Yeah, well." Deidara didn't rise to the bait. "So where's the girl?" He didn't see her anywhere in the main apartment. That meant in the bathroom. Like Schrödinger's cat she might be dead or alive at this point. Deidara got a little excited at the prospect of guessing.

"I brought bags as well as gags, since I didn't know what you meant by 'get rid of.' Not like you to be so cagey. She in the bathroom?"

It would take a heart pumping blood to allow the body to blush and Deidara had almost come to believe Sasori was made of wood or stone the way he acted. The flush of blood to his cheeks immediately told Deidara that something was up.

"Not in the main room, not in the bathroom, never in the office so… bedroom, yeah?" The dangerous look Sasori gave him told Deidara he was right. "Well, well, human after all are we?"

"Shut up." It was a command not a joking suggestion. The man had no light side. Apparently even sex didn't get that stick out of his butt.

Deidara walked over to the kitchen and pulled the bottle of vodka out of the freezer. He took a swig straight from the bottle, wishing it would make Sasori wince but knowing he would never give him the satisfaction.

"She's braced herself for this. I'll put on the headphones and the blindfold and you will escort her down. I'll be watching if you decide to take liberties."

"I'm guessing you already did." All he got was a frown for his barb, but that was more than he usually got. "Hey, what's the deal with this girl? She something special?"

Sasori seemed to consider the question. "She might prove to be very useful to me."

That was as good as a love confession for Deidara's purposes. The cheesy grin he plastered on his face almost hurt it was so wide.

"Just drop her in a suburb and make sure she's unharmed."

Deidara couldn't stop grinning. "We going to see more of her in the future?"

"None of your fucking business."

"I'll take that as a yes." He tried to laugh loudly enough that it followed Sasori into his bedroom. He felt satisfied that he had hit a nerve when the door slammed behind him.


	2. Chapter 2

One does not simply 'date' a drug dealer, and Sakura did not think of whatever it was she thought she would be doing with Sasori as 'dating' in any traditional sense. He implied future contact but it didn't materialize. So little contact was to be had with him that she expected he had forgotten all about that strange day they spent together. It could have been a dream thought up by her concussed brain trying to give her a reason why she had escaped that den of thieves alive. There were any number of reasons she made it through that day in one piece, and none of them had to have anything to do with a sexy older man.

Life went on.

This semester was tough as junior year was supposed to be, made all the more difficult by Naruto taking a leave of absence. Sasuke was in a deep pit and Naruto would stop at nothing to get him out, but Sakura had learned her lesson and it was time to live for herself not a dream of what life could have been like if Sasuke wasn't broken.

Midterms passed. Halloween parties happened. Thanksgiving and the most precious trip home of the year came and went, and then it was back to a cold city and temporary holiday work to afford some slightly nicer gifts than last year for the family. Then there was studying, tutoring, participating in club work (Ino dragged her into it), and eventually the Christmas phone call where she was passed around the room in the traditional holiday hot potato fashion. Life was so wretchedly normal it seemed like last summer was a terrible nightmare she had woken up from.

So when an unlisted number popped up on her phone, she felt free to ignore it and let it go to voicemail despite that fact that it was the holidays and even telemarketers couldn't shake her cheer. Sakura was buying fruitcake to bring to her kickboxing class, knowing well enough that all those ladies who did it for the exercise wouldn't touch it and she'd have a whole fruitcake to herself she'd be obliged to eat since she had spent the money. It was the only way she could think of to spoil herself in an altruistic fashion.

On the bus, she picked up her phone at last to listen to the voicemail on the off chance that it was something important. She missed her stop, and two stops after her stop, before she came to and hopped off into the ice that had been mushy snow before the cold snap.

"The car will come for you tonight at 11pm. If you get in, make sure you dress well. If you don't get in, I can't guarantee what I'll do."

No Christmas cheer could warm the cold feeling at the pit of her stomach to hear Sasori's voice. The darkest day of the year had already passed but you could have fooled Sakura. She didn't wonder at how he had her number (she had spread her whole life in front of him on his computer after all) but she did wonder at what the hell it all meant.

Sakura owned exactly one little red dress, and so she climbed into it, some sheer hose, the only pair of heels she owned (black patent leather purchased as a joke by Ino who had heard enough from Sakura about the orthopedic problems they caused) and swiped some lip gloss on her mouth as she noted the time. She had spent an hour in front of the mirror trying to decide if this was madness or not.

"Madness it is," she mumbled as she tried to take the stairs up from her crappy basement apartment fast, but not so fast that she's slip on the ice. Anticipation should not have been one of the emotions she felt, or the thrill adrenaline provided. And certainly she should not have been trying to relive those hazy memories in Sasori's bedroom, where nothing but sense memory could reproduce the events that transpired there thanks to some very effective blackout curtains.

The town car stopped, looking nondescript and expensive but not so expensive you'd pay it much mind. It was the sort of thing the manager of a bank might drive and was utterly forgettable. Tinted windows didn't allow her the pleasure of seeing her escort, but when he pushed open the passenger seat she clapped eyes on what she had half-hoped was a deeply troubling fantasy instead of reality.

Sasori didn't say anything, and he didn't need to. She stepped into the car, looking him over out of the corner of her eye and shivering even when the heated seat brought her body temperature back up. He drove smoothly but aggressively across town, right into the center of the tourist hot spots. When they pulled into a nearly empty underground garage she wondered briefly if she was the dumbest girl in the city or the dumbest girl in the whole state to have gotten into the car with this man.

The blasted man didn't open the door for her when he got out, nor did he speak to her. She felt as off balance in these shoes as she felt emotionally but she got out and stood next to him, her eyes almost level with his in thanks to the heels. He arched an eyebrow at her delicately and armed the car alarm with a loud beep that made her shoulders jump before turning away.

"I hope you ate already because dinner isn't involved." He said over his shoulder and began to walk in brisk steps.

"I didn't want to possibly die on an empty stomach." The ravioli she had reheated had been left over from last night, and honestly unappetizing, but she had eaten all of it dutifully.

"You talk less than I remember."

"I don't have a head injury this time."

He tilted his head to one side, conceding the point. One fine hand disappeared into the pocket of his coat and pulled out thin gloves. _He's going to strangle you and leave you in a parking garage!_ Her inner voice screamed and began to hyperventilate. Outwardly, Sakura was wondering how much damage a heel could do with a well-placed kick. If she got him while his back was turned she could take out a knee and get a solid head start.

"We're expected, and while time is not exactly running out, I don't enjoy loitering in parking garages." He allowed a smile in her direction, which she only got a glimpse of over his shoulder. "All sorts of strange characters here at night, after all."

"Hah." She wasn't sure if she was supposed to laugh or agree so she did something in between.

They walked through the structure to an entrance that needed some sort of key card, which Sasori naturally produced and a key code, which he entered. Lights flashed and a huge door opened leading into a basement or storage area for something. Forklifts, pallets, and draped objects were everywhere and Sasori walked through them all like he knew the way so she tried to project a little more confidence. The door closed behind them and then it was just the click of her heels on concrete that escorted them through twisting rooms, up some stairs, and then through a maintenance door into someplace Sakura had always meant to visit but never seemed to have time for.

"The art museum." Sakura said it flatly, but she was actually surprised. "At 11:30pm."

"What time do you usually go?"

"I refuse to be caught stealing art in—"

"Please," He snarled. "You're a smart woman. Why would I tell you to dress up if we were coming here for petty theft?"

Nothing in here was anything less than priceless. Petty theft?

"Excuse me for being a little off my game when I get less than six hours of notice that I'm going somewhere in my best dress."

His expression smoothed out, again the man she remembered only in sharper detail than her fuzzy memories allowed her to recall, and gestured for her to follow. He had loomed so large in her memory and now he seemed almost slight in his tailored clothes.

They passed the African wing, and the Greek, and Sakura peeked down at exhibits lit only by the backlighting near their displays. Suits of armor lay down one hall and she thought there might actually be tapestries as well. Sakura liked stories of knights and ladies, even if a lot of it was a bunch of chauvinistic garbage. What girl hadn't wanted to be a princess at some point, even if it was fleeting?

Modern pieces with their bold colors and mixed media flashed, but they didn't turn in there even though the gentle colors of a stoplight beckoned while bathing them in turns with rich reds and yellows. No green, but then that was art for you. There were several locked gates they needed to open along the way, but Sasori seemed to produce key after key like he had memorized it all before hand. Maybe he did this all the time for all she knew.

They passed stained glass windows and some truly depressing pictures of Jesus on the cross and various martyrs until they finally made it into the Renaissance wing. Looking around, it was all nature scenes and pictures from mythology (which she supposed was the nostalgia of the Renaissance for a simpler time when men were gods and women were constantly being ravished).

"Here," Sasori had stopped in front of a set of three pictures and shed his coat on a nearby bench. He sat down and gestured for her to sit as well. "My most recent acquisition. I thought of you."

She walked over to the small plaque announcing the display on loan from 'an anonymous donor' and preceded to read the title in steadily growing displeasure.

"Oh for God's sake, 'The Rape of Persephone'? Really?" She had to let a laugh out at that. "Let me think on that a bit. Hm. Yes. Subtle."

It was a set of three paintings. The first was the abduction scene, then Persephone sitting in the underworld contemplating a pomegranate tree, ending with the king and queen of the underworld on their respective thrones with the queen looking up to the sky tragically waiting for spring. All in all, it seemed a little heavy-handed but she tried to be flattered by what she was assuming was an invitation he couldn't voice. Some men said it with flowers, she just so happened to sleep with one that said it with priceless art.

"I thought her expression in the first one rather resembled you: indignant, angry, full of fight. The brushwork is fantastic, or so I'm told. I'm really more an expert in three-dimensional pieces. And ancient Egypt is more my style. They understood immortality."

"There's so much detail to these. While I'm going to be honest that I'm a little horrified at the parallel you're trying to draw, I do like the paintings. A future surgeon has to appreciate a steady hand when she sees one. Maybe I can learn to like art a little more."

Sasori narrowed his eyes. "Perhaps I should have taken you to one of those sideshow exhibits that shows all the muscles of the body or whatever else they do to the dead. Is that more to your taste?"

Trying to make light of it, since she seemed to have upset him for not being blown away by what might have been his version of a traditional date, Sakura put on a bright smile and joined him on the bench. "I can see that three times a week for free whether I want to or not. This is something I never would have done for myself if you hadn't brought me."

_Why are you trying to make a scumbag feel better about himself?_ Her inner voice was getting so acidic she almost winced. _In fact, how did he get you here in the first place? Should have called the cops as soon as he left that message._

Removing his gloves, he cracked his knuckles and then rested on hand on the bench. He seemed to be contemplating the paintings but he spoke to her without glancing in her direction. "You let your hair grow out." It felt more like an evaluation than an endearment. C+ on hair management skills, Sakura.

"Why are I here?" It slipped out. It might have been a question for her own mind but it seemed to make as much sense to ask him.

"You never ask the right questions." Sasori let his eyes slide from the art to her face and his half lidded expression told her that there was more on his mind than her hair.

"Well you never give a straight answer." It was impossible to hold his stare so she turned her own glare back to the paintings. Pomegranates indeed. "I thought I had made you up, almost."

He wasn't making any attempt to get closer to her but she felt like the room was constricting. "Really now? You don't strike me as that creative."

When she turned to argue she realized that the twinkle in his brown eyes was for her taking the whole bucket of bait.

"Art is all about interpretation, Sakura." He sounded bored as he spoke but she knew it was all part of the ruse. Sasori didn't talk about superfluous things, or rather if he did she would be surprised to her core. "The viewer often gives away more of themselves in their explanation than they expect you."

"So?"

"You see this as an invitation, perhaps. I might see it differently: a display of power, or an attempt to meet you at a level you could understand."

Sakura felt a grumble coming on. "This had better get 100% less condescending if you wanted to proposition me successfully."

"I'm tell you, my dear, that it doesn't matter what you think to me just as it doesn't matter what I think to you. Art is personal, which is why I'm so happy you're taking it personally."

"This is you happy?"

"Trust me." He was as hypnotizing as a snake charmer when he went in for the kiss.

"I don't think so." Was all she got out before her brain totally shut off again.

Sasori's hand slipped up her dress but, maddeningly, no farther than mid-thigh. She pressed her chest against him, grinding her mouth against his and demanding more. Something like a groan escaped from the back of his throat as he pulled away from her. Sakura wanted to relive those dark bedroom memories in the soft light of the museum but he stopped her.

Pointing up at the cameras Sakura went from seductress to bashful lady as fast as you could blink.

"A certain colleague of mine turned off the security cameras for this jaunt, but knowing him he's still monitoring us." Sasori spoke the words with his lips practically on hers and Sakura wondered why that made it so much harder to reign herself in.

"Then take us somewhere we can be alone."

"Is that something you want?" His eyes slid over the paintings then back to her. Bastard sounded so satisfied like he had predicted it all, which he might have. They had some undeniable chemistry, and Sakura loved feeling so desired by someone like him: smart, dangerous, handsome. _Add evil in and we're circling closer to truth._

Sakura hated herself for how much she wanted him, hated that she was making this decision without the convenient excuse of a head injury. It meant she was agreeing to whatever this was tonight, possibly longer. She didn't always have to say yes, she told herself. Saying yes tonight could be a one off just for curiosity's sake, but she knew she was making up excuses to justify something unconscionable.

"Don't worry," Sasori said, immediately making her worry. "You're in control of the choice here. I won't make it for you." That meant she had already lost, somehow, and the fact that he didn't follow that with maniacal laughter was a minor miracle.

"I think I made my choice the first time I went looking for Sasuke." She didn't feel particularly sexy now, just fatalistic. She so desperately wanted to forget how stupid she had been getting herself entangled in this mess, but this was the reality she had to work with and Sakura was much better at charging in than retreating.

"Ah, well, at least you're seeing things more clearly now."

If she was already in hell she might as well enjoy herself a little, she thought ruefully, and allowed self-loathing to be swallowed by lust. Ultimately this was how she expected to forget Sasuke, even if it was just as destructive as the Uchiha's own escape had been.

The embrace was tight and her eyes were closed so she couldn't see Sasori's beatific smile, or his smooth face revealing deep relief. He understood why Hades did it.


	3. Chapter 3

Sakura didn't play at the gym. Kickboxing and her attempts at MMA had been totally shoved to the side while school ate up her time, but when she found a spare hour here or there she dragged herself to the gym and tried to do what she could to keep in fighting shape. Mental battles were so much harder for her, trying to diagnose and memorize and justify reasoning to prove to her teachers she really was the best of the best. A real fight was so much clearer: all movement analysis, muscle memory, and conditioning. Her body was a weapon, or so she liked to think, and today that weapon was working on her cardio. She hated cardio days. The treadmill seemed to watch her, daring her to push as hard as she pushed her weights. Running had no variation in movement, and she found she got bored and sloppy compared to lifting days.

She plugged in her music, strapping her phone to her arm and inserting her ear buds. Today she was going to do her intervals and she was not going to stop to search for better songs, or take a drink of water, or look around for friends to talk to while she was running. No distracting herself, she swore. The music started, (nothing with lyrics since she was too tempted to sing along and it winded her too fast) and her warm up began.

True to form, once she had pounded out her first mile her mind began to drift…

***

Sitting in a coffee shop, midterms packing the place to the brim while people tapped frantically on laptops or talked seriously with study groups and there was Sakura in a prime corner table with a cooling mug of tea (her third) and a serious expression. She knew she was wrinkling her cursed forehead while editing a paper on case studies. At one time she had had a study group, but she had held some strong opinions about things and stopped going to prevent bad blood between her and her classmates. It hadn't forced her to study much more, as it turned out.

Spring had come somewhat early, but the still cold air did nothing to alleviate the moist heat of a hundred bodies thinking and sweating hard in close proximity. Sakura cuddled closer to the window and felt the glass spread cool relief to her hot skin through cloth. The fan on her laptop whirred audibly and she wondered if this was the year the old thing gave out. It had been a gift on her eighteenth birthday and obsolete as soon as she opened it, but she was used to its quirks and she didn't mind how slow and heavy it was. The screen blinked and she slapped the side, as if violence would make hardware magically better.

After pressing save on her last edit she watched the hourglass turn on the mouse with some satisfaction. She knew she had nailed this one, study group be damned. Someday she's have a team at a hospital that got her, that backed her up. Years of school yet to go, though, which meant she needed to find a way to play nice until she found those truly like-minded people.

"Nice doorstop. Doubles as a heater, I see."

"Table's taken, buddy. And I'm not looking for company." Guys who thought they could soften you up with insults always rubbed her the wrong way. Her self-esteem wasn't low enough to find that attractive.

"Oh don't worry, I'm not planning to linger a second longer than I have to in this place."

She knew _that_ tone, even over the chatter bouncing off the walls, and she looked into Sasori's narrowed brown eyes with something bordering on shock playing across her face.

"Well, if you hate it so much, why are you here?"

"You never ask good questions when I catch you off guard. I believe the question you should be asking me is 'what are you holding?' unless you want to pretend to make chitchat first."

Sakura was sleep deprived, cranky, hungry, and probably smelly from sweating into her long sleeved shirt the past few hours. This was not at all how she wanted to interact with Sasori, but at least they were in a public place for once. His red hair was just peaking out at the corners of a dark, soft winter hat and his charcoal pea coat and jeans taken with his youthful face made him look like any other college kid in the place. He was flawlessly unnoticeable.

"If you had gone to college, what would you have studied?" His slight frown at her choosing 'chitchat' was almost immediately erased by bland neutrality as he slumped in a chair next to her. Even the slump was an affectation of his college kid character today, and Sakura wondered if he planned it out that way or did it naturally.

He examined her tea mug, one she had brought from home with a big cartoon snail on it. She had gotten it at a store at the beach with her mom when she was little. "Business I suppose. Something practical and lucrative, most likely."

"What if I said I thought you'd be locked up in a ceramics room or the metal shop?"

"Fanciful." He smiled at her, the barest hint of a crinkle making it to his eyes. "Starving artist isn't my sort of scene. I was born to swim with the sharks."

"Maybe I think you were made to swim with the sharks." She noted his hand on her knee with more than a little interest, and the feeling of loss when he withdrew it generated discomfort. "So what were you holding?"

He dropped it on the table and pushed it in her direction. It was in an unremarkable brown paper bag, and when she opened it and beheld the beautiful and most of all expensive laptop inside she immediately sucked in air through her teeth in vague alarm. It was in new packaging, unopened, with the receipt taped on top (paid in cash in full) but she knew it was blood money. Could she justify owning it?

"If you don't accept it, I'll put it under my car tire on the way out. If you take it, then whatever happens to it after this moment is your own concern." She made no move and that sly smile of his broke over his face again as he stood to leave. "Happy early birthday."

***

Sakura was sweating in earnest as rage had her pushing too hard too fast this interval. She thought about that fancy computer still sitting unopened under her bed. It was a constant source of temptation and frustration both. Just like Sasori, she had no idea what to do about it.

How dare he just drop in and out of her life, sending her into tailspins and then acting like he had nothing to do with it all! He had no idea how hard she had worked to have a normal life and normal friends, (for a given value of normal). That business with Sasuke had been a dark chapter she was walling off in her heart, but she felt vulnerable all over again when Sasori showed his face.

It was so aggravating to be subjected to all this turmoil when school and friends were dramatic as it was. Hinata was practically withering without Naruto around and Ino and Chouji were constantly fighting these days. With finals over, and most of them working instead taking summer classes, Sakura was watching her friends implode without school to keep them busy. Next September they were seniors, and unlike Sakura who had years left in med school after undergrad a lot of them were facing the real world in less than a year.

Stretching her stride out, she felt her muscles scream a bit, but pain was her way of judging if the workout was a good one. Wet hair slapped the back of her neck and she waited for the rotating fan to face her way again and relieve some of the burning heat radiating from her.

***

It was a supermarket for god's sake. It was practically obscene that he would be there, wandering around with a basket as if he hadn't ruined someone's life that morning. She couldn't prove that he had, but she imagined it was a safe bet. He had met her at the door, bumping into her as if it were an accident and then catching her eye as she apologized to him over and over. Sakura had gone from apologetic to enraged in seconds and as she turned purple and sputtered he had ushered her into the store.

"I don't have a lot of time, so if you can get over yourself we can continue." His comment had done nothing in that moment to sooth her ire.

Twenty minutes later, after arguing with her every step of the way about what she ate or wanted to eat she felt like he had just showed up to have an argument and it didn't really matter how she formed her diet. His 'undercover' outfit was extra ridiculous this time. Trucker hat, sunglasses, tight collared shirt, pants that might as well have been painted on… he was playing the douchebag very convincingly.

"I'm not listening to another word! I am buying this mac and cheese knowing full well it's completely formed from tasty chemicals because I need something quick to make once in a while. Some of us can't be so lucky as to have food delivered for us." She grabbed more boxes than she meant to, just to make a point. If she could have slammed them harder into her basket she would have.

He didn't grab for them, having received a ringing slap the last time his hand had made it in and snatched out some ramen. "Your protein intake won't be enough with that to maintain your fitness level. You should be buying more meat."

"Meat is expensive. You should be thinking like a college student, since you insist on dressing like one. And you're completely ridiculous looking, by the way." They stood in line, long now that rush hour was ending and people were making their way into the store. She usually planned on getting here early and had totally lost track of time.

He dropped his empty basket to the side and stood with her, his chest just barely touching the back of her shoulder. It was almost a looming, but it felt more protective than creepy. The comfort level she had reached with him present was unacceptable. Sasori needed to live his life miles away from her doing whatever nefarious things he was up to, and if he didn't leave her alone she should go into protection or something. Idle thoughts, since uprooting her life was the last thing she wanted regardless of Sasori's presence in her life. There was just no end to this weird relationship in sight and she still wasn't sure she entirely hated it.

They reached the checkout and she dug around in her bag for her wallet. After a couple minutes of apologizing and further purse excavation she heard Sasori sigh and produce a card. She took the receipt, ("Thank you for shopping with us, Mr. Tanaka") and stuffed it into her grocery bag angrily, worried about her wallet until he produced it from somewhere on his person with a flourish.

"Ah, when you bumped into me, right? Bastard." Damn his fast hands. She hadn't even noticed that he had it the whole time, even though his clothes were too tight to have hidden it. Parlor tricks to make her crazy and they were working. "What's the point of hassling me at the grocery store, I know you have more important things to do."

He regarded her with a considering look. "Did you expect to see me here, looking like this?"

"Never in a million years." She felt like she was always one step behind him, and she _hated_ feeling stupid. "Oh."

He leaned in close and she held her breath involuntarily. "You should be more cautious of the world around you."

Leaving her there in the parking lot, a little scared, a lot riled up, and completely confused as to what he meant, she dutifully waited for the bus and took deep calming breaths. Sakura had gotten herself almost completely under control again when she arrived home to find bags and bags of groceries sitting in her kitchen and punched the wall hard enough to leave a fist sized dent and fissured crack in her entranceway wall.

She changed all her locks and bought a deadbolt the next day, as if that would do any good.

***

Ten minutes to go and she had nothing left. All of her effort had been wrung out of her from overdoing it earlier. She slammed her palm down on the red stop button and then, thinking better of it, walked out a brisk cooldown. This was going to feel terrible for a while, and she mopped her brow on the way to the water fountain. Sleep early might be key once she ate something, even though it wasn't going to get dark for hours.

"Spot me?"

He looked sinfully good in his compression shirt and track pants, damn him. Sakura hated looking like death warmed over in front of Sasori every time when he looked like a million bucks. Her eyes wandered down his chest to where she knew his tattoo lay, and then snapped back to reality where he was waiting for her to reply.

"Sure." She still had sweat drying on every bit of her body, and she could barely think. "But I don't know how much help I can be right now."

It didn't seem like this could possibly be real. He wasn't mysteriously appearing and disappearing, he was just loading weight onto a barbell and getting ready to do a bench press like a normal guy. The amount of weight he loaded on was surprising, as well as how easily he managed it. He didn't want her to spot him, she noted wryly, he wanted her to see how much he could lift. As soon as that occurred to her an amused snort flew out of her unbidden.

The clink of the weight bracing on the rest meant her inattention had been found out. "You're right to laugh. Even I think this is ridiculous."

"I like that you want to impress me." She was bone tired from her run, and she didn't have enough energy to tell him off or warn him away or any of those other things she swore she would do last time he crashed her life like this. "It's so normal. I don't usually feel very normal when you're around."

Sasori huffed a laugh, and then lay down again. "I'm here now so I'm finishing my set. You're free to join me, but I'd just as soon you didn't since I've managed to make an ass of myself."

"I wouldn't say that. I actually found it kind of refreshing." _It's all part of his plan,_ her inner voice warned, _he's just worming his way in and before you know it you'll be pulling bullets out of thugs and stitching up knife wounds in back alleys._ It was chilling to think of how quickly he disarmed her, showing up like this. Normal was the new seductive.

The part she liked best of all is this time she got to walk away first.


	4. Chapter 4

Lust was exhausting, Sasori decided.

He had tried everything to expunge it from his life—porn, pills, retail therapy, violence—but nothing seemed to the do the trick now that Sakura had reintroduced it to his existence. Being an emotionless robot had been extremely restful previously. Like dying road flares emotions had fired in his mind only to fade to the background and if something inconvenient like remorse had cropped up and tried to assert itself there had been a pill or a fifth of vodka to kill it.

Sakura had sparked something in him that wasn't dying. Even Deidara didn't bring her up anymore because it had gone from amusing quirk to possible weakness and Deidara didn't need a weak man as his partner in their business. As a joke, Deidara had offered to stick a needle in her arm and ship her to a brothel overseas and Sasori had nearly strangled him right there on the carpet after they had exchanged blows. It at least reminded his partner that Sasori was plenty strong, but the burr in his brain named Sakura caused him some worry.

One year. A year with her name hovering in the back of Sasori's mind, uninvited. She was decency and goodness and a mean right hook. Sakura would have been the name of his long dead conscience. He had almost called her a hundred times in that past year but had tapped out the number only twice. The first time in winter when he wanted to see her, and the second time he almost called her to pick up the blond kid he knew was her friend. The number had been in the phone, his fingers entering it without him even noticing, but he couldn't press call. Half dead from fighting with the younger Uchiha, Sasori figured the blond kid would live until the ambulance arrived. Deidara and Sasori had dragged Sasuke back to Itachi and told him to ship his crazy brother somewhere farther away next time. The dumb kid always seemed to wander back to his old haunts, and it was putting them all at risk. Sasuke couldn't keep himself together enough to be a real asset, but Itachi wouldn't let them chuck him in an incinerator either.

The lone monitor in his computer room unaffiliated with his building showed him that Sakura was following the same schedules. The regularity of her life threw the strange sporadic nature of his into sharp contrast. Her living room and kitchen was all the camera had been set up to monitor, but it showed him plenty about her life. At first he thought this move would help him get sick of her faster, when he had delivered those groceries to her crappy apartment, but the past couple months he started to wonder if this was what hooked people to reality TV. When she wandered to the kitchen for a glass of water before bed in nothing but underwear and a sports bra it was the pinnacle of his day. Those nights when he missed that moment left him inevitably cranky.

No pictures. He couldn't risk it. No records of her anywhere besides the live feed in his private office. Her number was memorized, address too. When he wanted to know something about her, he looked it up himself. The phone he had used to call her that one time he had immediately destroyed. If it had been so easy to wipe her entirely from his mind he might have gone for that, because being around her wasn't doing anything for his work performance. Emotion was a liability, no matter how far away the object was.

The secrecy wasn't because he fooled himself into thinking she was unknown to the other members of the Akatsuki, but to diminish her importance. If she was perceived as an irregularly summoned booty call then they weren't likely to contact her unless one of them wanted to make a move against him that required a show of force. Sasori knew he had proved time and again that posturing like was pointless, mostly because he wasn't hungry to move up the ranks and he wasn't so insecure that he thought what he had gained would be stripped from him.

***

"No news. I suspect my mole has been compromised."

Pain looked as unhappy as always. Orochimaru had been a thorn in his side ever since defecting and taking his side business of meth production to an all-inclusive production and distribution model. That had been years ago, but the man refused to die no matter how many times they tried to root him out of their territory. Moving halfway across the country may have altered the immediacy of the economic threat, but they knew he had one beady eye on the Akatsuki empire and was waiting to see a weak spot he could strike at.

Twisting a snakebite piercing around with two fingers, Pain considered Sasori evenly. The piercings always struck Sasori as silly, probably born from the same impulse in Pain that drove Sasori at eighteen to get his scorpion tattoo. They had grown more numerous over time, too, having started with a simple eyebrow bar when they had first met then two bars, and moving down into nose, ears, lips, chin. Sometimes they changed place, old puckered holes showing where the healing hadn't quite completed, and Sasori wondered if that was Pain's addiction.

"Does your mole need to be disposed of?"

"Kabuto knows practically nothing. He was expendable, which is why I sent him in the first place. Orochimaru doesn't choose associates for their longevity, merely for their desperation." He took a sip of his drink, wondering why Pain only chose to meet in hotel bars that charged so damn much for their liquor. "…or fanaticism."

Konan, silent as always, stared at the window where 30 floors below them people walked around the sidewalks on their way to dinner or movies or whatever it was normal people did on a Friday night. She could just as easily have been staring at her reflection in the glass. Sasori felt like she was a puff of air or a figment of Pain's imagination right up until she slid a knife into someone, and even then he had had to see it twice before he really believed it. As usual she wore long sleeves, even on a hot summer day like today, to hide her track marks.

"I want the snake handled. You're being cautious recently. Don't let caution become hesitation."

"I know Orochimaru as well as anyone can know a schizophrenic sociopath. I'll get it handled."

Pain seemed impassive, his drink sitting untouched in front of him, condensation dripping down to soak the napkin below. "We've known each other a long time now. I'd hate to think you were losing your touch."

Without another word, he stood and left with Konan right behind him. She deposited an origami flower made of bar napkin next to her own barely touched orange juice. Sasori was left to wonder if he was going soft.

***

"I'd rig his bed with explosives. That would be a helluva way to go, eh?" Deidara, sensing that Sasori's meeting with Pain had been less than pleasing, had tried to cheer him up on the way back. However, Deidara's way of cheering someone up mostly consisted of offering up a menu of possible violent crimes, usually involving arson.

Sasori tried not to roll his eyes. Usually he had sunglasses on when Deidara chattered on in the car to prevent him from seeing that particular affectation, but it was night and Sasori wasn't up to the teasing should he put them on. It would go on for weeks because Deidara didn't know when to shut up.

"He's got a thing for little boys right? I bet we could pay a midget to poison him."

That actually got a snort from Sasori.

"We could go all ninja on him and attack him at his house."

"Compound."

"What?"

Sasori itched at the bridge of his nose. "Orochimaru has a compound, not a house. It would be impractical to attack him openly."

"Compound, eh? He cooking or starting a fuckin' cult? Either way it sounds smelly."

"I guess he didn't want to have to choose."

Sasori remembered those times he had to work in close proximity to Orochimaru, and smelly was indeed one of the words that came to mind. Body odor and chemical residue always preceded and followed that man.

"You're not going to be bitchy tomorrow are you?"

The eye roll was impossible to stop this time. "If you're referring to the fact that I missed my evening appointment, then you might want shut up and watch the road."

"You're not going to punch me while I'm driving." It was said with easy confidence, but Deidara was watching Sasori out of the corner of his eye. The man had been spoiling for a fight, and Sasori was thinking there was a dealer who had been skimming profits recently that Deidara could pay a visit to and get that aggression out. Sasori didn't fight for the fun of it. If there was nothing to be gained then what was the point?

Pain's words haunted Sasori in a way Deidara's taunts could never touch him. When Pain had folded him into the organization he had always sent orders and never bothered to follow up on them. The assumption had been that things would get done. This Orochimaru business was starting to take so long it smacked of incompetence. He needed a plan, but he wasn't sure yet how to get to Orochimaru in some way that the man's paranoid brain had not already anticipated. Evil was easy to plan around, crazy much less so.

He took the stairs for once, going two at a time up the back stairs that he really only used when he was disposing of something. Always down, never up. Maybe he needed some novelty in his life, maybe that's what Sakura actually was. Maybe if he just took the stairs once in a while he could forget all about her.

Without even thinking about it somehow he found himself staring at her monitor inside his office. The empty living room, with books spread all over the table and a takeout box with a pair of chopsticks sticking out the top. A jacket on the floor, next to the books and food, told him that she had probably crashed on the couch with some dinner to study and then gave it up. She might be out; she might have been one of those people headed to a normal Friday night that he had seen below the hotel.

She had left the light on, which wasn't like her. Then his eyes caught it and he inhaled sharply. The crumpled napkin on top of the books was not crumpled at all but in a beautiful flower shape. That rotten junkie bitch had even made sure the hotel's bar napkin insignia was clearly facing the camera. All the possibilities of this message began slotting themselves into place. Once he had cleared his head he picked up his phone and dialed Deidara's number.

"Jeez man, I'm not even half-way home yet."

"I need you to take a detour and pick up some smokes for me."

The line was silent for a bit, and then Deidara started to laugh. It had been a long time since they had discussed code words.

"Which store?" Sasori said it quickly. "Got it."

The line went dead. Sasori wondered, for once, if he had made the best decision. He knew he hadn't made the right one as a tiny voice screamed in his head in her aggravated tones, but he knew this would solve a few of his personal and professional difficulties at least.

He hoped she was at the movies, but he steeled himself for what might come as he shut the monitor off and went to the bathroom to medicate his mind into euphoric numbness.

***

"Can I stay with you tonight?" Sakura said it in such a small hopeless voice there was no person on the planet that could have refused her, no matter how callous.

"As long as you need to," Ino replied as they both watched the inferno that had once been Sakura's apartment building from the car.

"My books…" Sakura moaned as Ino pulled away. It was a really shitty summer, she decided.


	5. Chapter 5

"You have a traitor's soul, Uchiha."

"Whatever…" Sasuke was doing well in Orochimaru's compound, apparently. At first he had thrown him in to piss off Itachi and find some use for the annoying kid. Using him as a double agent was convenient since Orochimaru fed him the chemicals he craved while trying to use him against the Akatsuki itself. Sasori figured there was little harm he could cause on purpose compared to what he had done on accident. Sasuke had free reign in both arenas which irked Itachi beyond reason, though if it was because of the sudden threat Sasuke posed to his position or because he actually worried what the outcome might be for his brother Sasori neither knew nor cared. In both cases Itachi suffered and that was reason enough alone for Sasori.

Deidara had been grumbling lately about Sasori getting vicious. There had been more cleanup involved than Deidara wanted to be a part of, particularly because he was getting a higher profile than he cared to have. The authorities had been circling, not just the corrupt network they could pay to look the other way, but federal agencies and local hotshot politicians who were eyeing elections. At some point someone was going to misstep and quietly Pain had been building connections in other cities with Sasori's help to assure there was a backup plan. When the move came they knew it was going to be sudden.

For the first time in years there were unexpected choices to be made and Sasori was at the forefront of many of them. When Pain needed someone to talk to rival networks it was Sasori's puppets at the table, and he made it perfectly clear he wasn't sticking his neck out for anyone even Pain. Privately, he set aside money in more accounts, planning for the downfall that had been as inevitable as the rise. Sasori was not the only one warily watching the movements of the heroes monitoring them.

"Orochimaru is moving sites soon. He got a deal on a bunker built by some dead libertarian who didn't believe in the army but sure believed the communists were coming. It's all underground, multiple exists, usual crazy den of snakes bullshit." Sasuke tried sounding tougher than his years, but his tone didn't match his tired body and strung out sunken eyes. Internally, Sasori thought he was looking more and more like Orochimaru every time they met. He'd give even odds on Sasuke joining in with Orochimaru in actuality, given enough time. The kid was hungry for something and didn't have enough strength of character or direction to choose his own way.

"Would this bunker happen to be located within convenient driving distance?" Sasuke's nod told Sasori that the bastard was finally consolidating to push into their territory again. He still had something to prove after all these years.

Sasori looked over at the air inversion on the horizon. The city looked grey and orange in the sunset and Sasuke's pale face was washed with color as he waited for Sasori to say something more.

***

Sakura was sifting through her clothes, trying to figure out what was even worthy of being boxed and shipped to her new home away from home. Stars had aligned and the scholarships she had applied to at her first choice med school had come through as she heard she had been admitted. Suddenly she had possibilities unfolding in front of her that had been pipe dreams before and impossibly far away as she had picked through the burnt rubble that had been her apartment a year ago. Ino was less than pleased, since her internship at a management leadership program at a flagship department store chain meant they were going to be separated for the first time since they were kids.

"You're leaving me…" Ino said dramatically, flopping on the mattress they had put in the corner of Ino's tiny loft for Sakura after her world had fizzled up in smoke. The sheets they had stapled to the ceiling for privacy were drooping, as usual, and Ino tugged at the corner of one absently. "My baby! All grown up!" She gave a fake sob but the sadness touching her words wasn't feigned.

"Just be happy you're starting your job already. I've got a while to go yet. More stress. More tests. More studying. All that stuff I know you'd rather forget."

"Finals week was the happiest and saddest I've been in a while." Ino tapped one recently manicured nail against her lip. She had sprung for designs this time, and tiny pigs frolicked across the tips of her digits. Sakura couldn't imagine getting anything practical done with nails that long.

Sakura stifled a snort. Ino had been crying loudly into her pillow for hours before final grades came out and she found she had passed the math requirement that might otherwise have barred her from graduating. Sakura had worked with her for hours, tutoring her through concepts, and it was nice to know it paid off when Ino walked out of it with a solid B- after a low C showing at midterms and a warning from the teacher. There wasn't a chance she wouldn't have passed, but her pride being what it was Ino felt like a C might as well be an F.

"Will you be back next year?"

"If Naruto even graduates next year, but more likely he's almost two years behind us now." They didn't speak of Sasuke. It was the agreement all of them had reached collectively to save on the pain. "He's been talking like he might try to join the police after all this. He's pretty determined."

Ino shifted gears, picking up a sequined halter top she had forced Sakura to try on weeks ago and then forgot about. "We've still got a couple days before you can fly out and set up in your new place. We should go out tonight. Maybe you can finally have that one night stand you've been threatening you'd have all year to prove you're not a frigid cow." Ino waggled her eyebrows as she refastened her high ponytail with a hairband.

Sakura narrowed her eyes at the text books she was loading into a box, bought with the money her renter's insurance had provided (thank heavens her dad had insisted she get some!) and tried not to be annoyed. It wasn't Ino's fault that she had been unsuccessful at dating, but it was Ino's fault she felt bad about it. Life had been busy as a freshman, and she hadn't felt like participating in the hook-up culture. Then in sophomore year when a lot of those hook-ups became relationships she had been obsessed with finding Sasuke. After that… well she was allowed to talk big over drinks in a club but she never actually wanted to have one night stands with anyone. She wasn't sure she could involve herself so casually with someone when she wasn't confident she made healthy choices.

The shiver that ran down her spine as she thought about the man with red hair and unsmiling eyes that had haunted her periodically now for years reminded her how broken her idea of relationships might be. From one monster to another she sure knew how to pick them, even if she hadn't consciously made a choice on the second one. All the bros at the clubs, and the studious scientific men she usually encountered hadn't made her blood hum the way Sasori did. She was convinced she would be a spinster doctor with a dozen dog-children.

"You're making that, 'I'm going to die alone' face again." Ino knew her too damn well.

"Well I might!"

"You just think too much. That's always been your problem. You have to let yourself be led around by your hormones once in a while. Your brain can't be the only thing with needs."

Sakura stood up, stretching out tight muscles in her back from being hunched over boxes. "What I _need_ is to be left alone so I can finish packing." The mock stern tone in her voice didn't fool Ino who was swinging the halter top around one finger and looking at her expectantly. "…And then _maybe_ we can go out tonight."

Ino whooped and sprung off the bed. "I'll call the gang! I know Hinata will come if I call Naruto first. We'll call it your going away party and then everyone will have to come!"

So much for her quiet night, but Sakura couldn't help but feel like it was going to be fun to let off some steam and celebrate. All the graduation parties were over so it wouldn't be a crush like it was a week ago when they went. Tonight, she felt, was going to be a nice chance to say goodbye.

***

It was humid, with rain finally threatening tonight with possible thunder showers for the rest of the week. Sakura's top stuck to her skin uncomfortably and she cursed the inventor of polyester silently in her own mind. She was two Cherry Bombs into the night and combination of energy drink and vodka made her wonder if her heart was going to explode. Ino had been doing them with her and was dancing with Chouji indecently, as usual. Hinata was hanging back with Naruto who was laughing over something Kiba had said. Naruto had actually gotten it through his thick head he needed to pay some attention to her when he realized she and Kiba would be working at the same veterinary office and Kiba was not so good a friend that he wouldn't make a move when given the opportunity. Somehow fistfights solved everything and they were all fast friends once again.

She was going to miss this. Well, not this in specific, since the club scene was not her favorite way to spend time with people, but having a network of friends close by she could call on. It was hard to imagine what a new city would be like, new friends, new classes, and all of bits that made up daily life. There was video chat and text messaging, but that wasn't the same as calling someone up and seeing a movie on the fly. Or surprise pizza parties. Sakura suspected her sadness was mutual, since a lot of everyone's smiles were a little too wide and their laugher a little too loud.

"I think I'm going to get some air." Sakura yelled at Lee.

"Would you like for me to come with you?" He said it too fast, hope lighting up his eyes as it did every time she said anything to him.

"Uh, I'm hitting the bathroom first. I'm good." She hoped he would finally move on once she wasn't close enough to be the focus for his attention. He simply nodded, and Sakura tried not to sigh her relief right in front of him.

Out on the balcony it was just as crowded, but the music was muffled and it didn't feel like she was drowning in her own sweat. Digging in her purse, she checked her phone to see missed call after missed call from an unknown number. Suddenly heat was not the issue as it felt like a bucket of ice had been poured over her, and she didn't even think about it as she hit redial.

***

As he had suspected, the attack had come as a complete surprise, and in retrospect he had wished it had been the SWAT team instead of Orochimaru that had jumped the gun. Wrong time wrong place, Sasori realized, as a pale Kabuto cornered him with long knives drawn. He should have been at home tonight but had only come out at the behest of Itachi who wanted to argue once again about the use of his brother as both bait and spy for Orochimaru. Itachi thought him too unstable, too prone to suggestion, and a bumbling fool who needed a handle on his addiction before they could use him reliably. Sasori basically agreed with all those points, but also knew that no plant they had used previously had been half as successful as the younger Uchiha had been in providing accurate locations and plans from the crazy former Akatsuki member. You had to take risks to get results sometimes.

From what he heard in jumbled words from Deidara as the blood loss made him too dizzy to hear much of anything, this had been an attack meant to take down Itachi alone. Sasuke must sure hate his brother, which would have been valuable to know before entered the quiet warehouse that Itachi leased to hold various tools and machine parts. Working on cars and motorcycles was a convenient hobby when you needed loud noises to drown out other transactions. Even if he hadn't been the target the knife wounds Kabuto had scored on him felt oddly personal.

Blood was everywhere. Itachi had fled, with the whole group of Orochimaru's cronies after him. Sasori had been left for dead along with a few unfortunate tweakers that Itachi had taken down in the first waves of attacks. The two dead men near Sasori, bullet wounds testament to Sasori's accuracy with his pistol, had been meant to finish him off when the whole mess of people had taken off. He had put the call in to Deidara before those two had arrived, and he felt the hot weight of the gun in one hand as he pulled his dropped phone back over and slumped against a metal post.

The red orange smears on the screen were lit from behind by the monitor and he considered how much time he might have left with the traditional idea of last regrets. It was possible these wounds were fatal, and they certainly hurt like hell. If they were not fatal in this moment, then it was equally possible they would be eventually fatal. Before he knew it the number was on the screen. He owed her something, after all this, after obsessing over her and ruining every part of her life he had ever touched. It wasn't on purpose, but he didn't really care if she thought it was or not. If he had anything of value to offer as a human, he wanted her to have it.

Sappy bullshit, he probably was dying if he was thinking like that. He dialed her again anyway when she didn't pick up the first time, or the second.

"Fuck…" There didn't seem to be anything else to say.

***

"Hello? You called my number? Who is this?" Sakura heard breathing on the other end and wondered if it was just some pervert. At least it would be something she could laugh about with Ino when she blocked the number.

"Sakura." It was a sigh, almost a wheeze. She had heard her name said like that by that voice before, and her body responded involuntarily to the memory.

"What do you want? Why did you call?" She should hang up on him, she knew. She should shut him out of her life, change her number, move to her new school and get on with the business of a normal life without the threat of him hanging over her.

He laughed; it was short, followed by a wet sounding cough. In the distance she heard someone call his name and he swore. He must have pulled the phone away from his head because she heard more voices as if through a tunnel.

"Dei! Here!"

"Shit man, that's a lot of blood. Not dead yet though, damn, heh."

There was a sound like a lot of grunting, scraping, and swearing.

"Get the gun."

"This is a mess man, I can't get it cleared up before the cops—"

"Toss some bleach on my bloodstains and forget it."

Suddenly, his voice was close again. She almost swayed on her feet, forgetting the club, tuning out everything except whatever terrible thing was happening on the other side of the line. "Where are you?"

Woodenly she told him, she didn't even think of denying him. If he was hurt she wanted to be there. Every impulse in her, medical student and woman, told her that if there was something she could do to fix him she had to try.

"Wait out front. Look for the car flashing its lights. If you don't find us…" in the background Deidara was spouting constant cursing and running commentary which she could barely make out. "Forget about it. All of it."

The line went dead.

***

Her heart in her throat, nerves jangling, Sakura waited near the front of the club. Men came to talk to her and she pretended to answer her phone, ignoring them. Drunken people stumbled out, laughing, and she craned her head around them down the streets. There were only three approaches where a car could stop, and she watched each one in turn. The buzz of the alcohol was there but adrenaline was more powerful now and she look down in satisfaction at her level hand. Maybe ER doctors felt like this at first, waiting for patients to arrive. She wanted the medical life she wondered if maybe a piece of her relished carnage.

If an eternity could feel like a second, that's how she would have described this. She jumped at every car that drove by, running hands through damp hair and rubbing lipstick off her lips as she located her tiny bottle of hand sanitizer. This was all business tonight.

The flash when it came found her running over to the crosswalk and mashing the button frantically. Never did she think she would move this fast in heels, even the little ones Ino had put her in tonight. The tight green sleeveless dress she had borrowed from Ino rode up on her thighs and she held down the hem as she practically sprinted on the walk signal.

An attractive blond man rolled down the window and nodded at her tightly as she approached. "Back seat," was all he said to her before rolling the window up again.

"Sasori!" She surveyed him quickly, familiar red hair messed up and gritty with random dirt. One hand was clutching his side where his white shirt had a large spreading bloodstain. Blood was all over his hands, and his black suit looked wet in patches. "This isn't something I can just stitch up, you need a hospital right now."

"No shit…" the blond man in the front was clutching the wheel tightly but he didn't turn his head to them, merely using the mirror to monitor her.

Sasori was gritting his teeth together, his brown eyes were calm but clouded with pain. "You're going to help me out of this car and into that alley right over there. Then you're going to call the ambulance and say you found me. Deidara is taking my wallet and phone and I am going to become a wounded citizen to your Good Samaritan. Can you do this?"

He actually needed her answer. This was bigger than making an anonymous call, she was going to be questioned by police and she needed to be willing to lie for him. He had never asked her to enter into his world before, to take part in something truly illegal. She would be an accessory to whatever it was he had just escaped from. Just like the first choice he offered her, albeit more pleasant then, this was all up to her.

"I'm not letting you die."

"Answer the fucking question!" He wasn't going to budge an inch unless she answered him definitely. Now was her chance if she wanted to escape this world he was part of, that he kept drawing her back into for whatever reason. "Can you do this?"

"I can do anything I damn well please, up to and including this so get your ass out of the car!" Deidara backed up enough so they would have some cover from a nearby tree from the main street they were next to, and Sakura bore Sasori's weight into the alleyway.

Deidara slowly left by backing up the car and taking a side street to wherever it was he needed to do, Sasori's personal items in hand. Sakura put in the call with the obligatory hysterical weeping before she hung up and turned to regard Sasori as calmly as she was able, wiping her sweating forehead with the back of her hand.

"I leave for med school next week. I imagine you'll find me if you want to," she felt the anger stir in her at him, complicated with all the other emotions he inspired in her. "If you're still alive. But you made it this far, I don't suppose I'll ever be shot of you."

Sasori didn't say anything at all, he just watched her, his eyes darting around her face and body. When he reached up to touch her cheek she didn't flinch like she thought she would and she didn't pull away like her brain told her to. Ino's words that you needed to think with something other than your brain were all that consciously ran through her mind as she leaned down and kissed him.

He tasted like she remembered and he had enough spark in him to ease his tongue into her mouth in an indecently sensual way. Sasori may have been half dead but you'd never know from the intensity of his lips over hers.

"That sounds like an invitation, maybe I—" He never got to finish as flashing lights filled their vision and Sakura became mindful that she was, officially, a complete stranger to this man.

Paramedics, shouting, blankets, confused friends, and there was Sakura with fake tears for the police and real tears for the sense that she had just relinquished control of some part of her life to someone she could never really trust.

***

Monitors beeped around him. For the first time in his life he had all the painkillers he could want, and absolutely no inclination to take them. Sasori examined the polka dot hospital robe with distaste and wondered for the fiftieth time if his roots were showing yet. Hospitals, he decided, were not his scene.

Deidara sat there, a grin fit to split his face the main indicator to Sasori that he was going to recover. Deidara had no real power in the Akatsuki other than what he'd gotten through Sasori. If Sasori had kicked the bucket then he would have to ingratiate himself with another high ranked member, and that would be either inconvenient or deadly depending on who he tried. Sasori living was good news for Deidara.

"I wanted to make you paper cranes or whatever, but then I remembered I'm not a twelve year old girl."

Sasori didn't crack a smile at that but he considered it. The only paper Deidara actually passed him was a hotel napkin with Konan's lipstick mark and a number. He silently memorized it and tore it up. Pain had a new number it seemed. He wondered what else was new now that Orochimaru had fired the first shot. The hospital was no safer than anywhere else, since Orochimaru held nothing sacred. He couldn't wait to get out.

"First vacation you've had in a while. I bet you wish it wasn't my pretty face here yackin' at you, yeah? Looks like some of those nurses back there have their eye on you. They sneakin' peaks under your robe when they change your bed pan?"

"Get out of here. Come back when you have more to tell me than jokes." He didn't say it angrily; Deidara at least relieved some of the boredom. You could only watch so much daytime TV. He'd be released in a few days' time, and soon enough life would be terrifyingly interesting again. It would be like the early days when they were still carving out territory for themselves against the old guard, only this time there were grudges. How long would the feds wait for them to slaughter one another before they swept in too? Certainly he had a lot to discover and Pain needed his services more than ever as a broker of information and liaison.

Through the pain and the monotony of this time in the hospital it wasn't the promise of battle that kept him going, but the thought that once he got out he had to start the hunt for a certain pink haired woman. The kiss she had planted on him before the ambulance arrived still made him stir, and he'd be damned if he didn't finish what she had started. No more cat and mouse, if she was temptation he was giving up and sliding into the pit.

He was damned anyway, he admitted to himself, but by some stroke of luck he'd dragged an angel down into the pit with him.


End file.
